First agenda item: so far we haven’t had anybody run for college DUCK rep, any ideas?

RD: Post in Fresher’s group to raise awareness – I hadn’t previously known this was a thing that was being run, people can’t apply for positions if they don’t know that they’re out there.

EM: Also, explain what the position actually involves – people may be reluctant to apply if they think it will require a lot of commitment.

JE: Good points – I will post in the fresher’s group about the position before the meeting tomorrow.

Second item: The SCA are organising the selling of candy canes in college this week, and I’ve been contacted and asked if we want to get involved. I’m not sure of all of the details involved, but I think that it could work if we sell them before the xmas formals on Tuesday and Wednesday.

All: Candy canes sound like a good idea.

JE: Okay, then we need someone to publicise them asap: Elena?

EM: Yes. How much are we selling them for? And where is the money going?

JE: I will find out from Lauren this evening – I’m not sure if the SCA have something specific they’re raising for (e.g. CATSS), or if we would choose a cause. If the latter, then potential Tyne & Wear Search and Rescue, or St Cuthbert’s Hospice – i.e. local charities.

All: Local charities sounds good.

JE: Third item – last year we raised a reasonable amount of money doing bake sales at the acoustic nights at Brooks Bar. Only ~£20-30 each time, but I think it would be good to start doing that again, then we have a few low effort fundraising events lined up for next term.

All: Bake sale sounds good.

JE: Not sure exactly who’s running it.

RD: Dominic Robson.

JE: I will message him to find out if it’s okay + to find out dates for next term.

Anyone like baking?

RD: Would be happy to bake for this.

EM: My flatmates like baking.

JE: I have a lot of equipment, we could potentially make things round mine beforehand.

We’ll revisit this at the start of next term.

Fourth item – ideas for fundraising events we could run next term.

RD: At my school we raised a bit of money doing a Valentines Serenade-a-gram – people would pay to have a group of singers serenade a person of their choice. Could be impractical though – not like in school where you could find out what class someone was in etc.

JE: Yeah, would likely not be possible to do for any livers out etc.

RD: Alternatively, sending roses to people – and if we make it so that the buyer can set who it is From and To, then people may get involved to tease friends etc.

AC: We could make it so that people have the option to include messages

RD: To make it easier to organise distribution, message the recipient on FB, telling them that they have been sent a rose and can pick it up from cuths bar (or somewhere) at a set time.

JE: So would you all be interested in organising something for Valentine’s Day?

All: Yeah, something cringey around Valentine’s Day.

RD: We could even potentially do a “Galentine’s Day” thing, so it is more about friends than being romantic.

JE: The charity formal this term went really well, and Elizabeth has mentioned she is keen to make it an annual event – I could potentially talk to her about making it termly, meaning we could hold another next term.

Another idea I had was to hold a Silent Disco – potentially charge people around £2 for the evening, all profits to charity.

AC: Yeah, I think that having cheap tickets would make people keen to go.

EM: Also, in Fresher’s the people DJ-ing didn’t mean that much to us as we didn’t really know them, but if we could get some “college characters”/BNICs to DJ then we could use that to get people interested.

JE: I will talk to Harry about the possibility, get his perspective on it – also TJ/MC?

Fifth item: we’ve kinda stalled on sorting out the sustainable volunteering opportunities for Cuth’s people that I was talking to you all about in your interviews. Had started to get somewhere with the idea of volunteering in schools, but Sharon Richardson has been ill recently and so I haven’t been able to follow up on some of the things I had talked about with her.

My thinking is that it’s quite hard to match up something that people in Cuth’s will want to do, with something that will have a positive impact – also issues of time commitments, everything sort of stops in exam term, plus, if we’re pursuing volunteering at schools, our terms are a lot shorter. So I’d like to suggest that we work on arranging a “Volunteering Day” after exams where we offer one day with lots of different things going on that people can get involved in.

EM: If we’re thinking schools, could find out if they are running ongoing projects about a certain theme – e.g. a project on the romans, or something – then could do something based around enrichment of an existing curriculum topic.

JE: Also, I’m thinking we could try to frame it as a “how many cuths students can we have volunteering on one day” sort of thing.

EM: So like setting a record each year?

JE: Or maybe a bit of a competition – what about, which year group has the most volunteers, or a parsons vs. bailey idea. Not sure if feasible, but could provoke more interest.

Aiming for having this after exams gives us some time to think and make arrangements – but would want to start to get the ball rolling at the start of next term.

Sixth item: I was thinking about ways to raise awareness of/participation in SCA volunteering projects, and I was thinking we could do posts about a different project on the college pages each week. Include details about how to sign up, get in contact with the project leaders to find out if there are spaces, get a description about the project from them (or potentially from SCA website), maybe include personal anecdotes if anyone volunteers with it, or if the project leader can provide them.

RD: Yeah, I volunteer with Dog Walking, would be happy to talk about that.

JE: I am project leader for crèche, so ca post about that the first week back.

AC, do you want to take this as the thing you’re responsible for?

AC: Yep, happy to.

JE: Or potentially we each do one a week, to share the work. I can post from the JCR page on the fresher’s groups, if you draft the post and send it to me?

RD: Should we maybe make a Cuth’s Outreach Comm page? Or does one already exist?

JE: There are profiles for Cuths DUCK and Cuths SCA, but not for Outreach Comm + I’m not sure who has control of them at the moment – I will try to chase that up.

EM: I’m happy to make the page.

JE: Make all of us admins, then we can do the posts about candy canes (and DUCK rep positions, plus, in the future, about SCA stuff etc.)

EM: What should we have as the picture?

AC: Is there a logo?

JE: Just use the Cuth’s logo – potentially do a quick Photoshop job and write Outreach Comm underneath the banner?

RD: Then each week we could set the cover photo to give information about the project we’re advertising that week.

JE: We’ve spoken about a lot this meeting – anyone of anything they would like to say about anything we’ve covered, or anything else?

I will make a Facebook group later and upload the minutes + action points for everyone.